


The Promise

by Liz Kenobi (Amidala_Thrace)



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-31
Updated: 2010-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:16:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amidala_Thrace/pseuds/Liz%20Kenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where should she go from here? How could she possibly cope with the information Obi-Wan had imparted?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt #003 Ends at fanfic100. I've always wondered what went through Padmé's mind after Obi-Wan told her Anakin had turned to the dark side. This is one interpretation. Originally posted February 24, 2008.

The japor snippet.

Padmé could not look anywhere but at her small necklace.

If she looked at the world beyond her apartment, at the bustling activity of Coruscant, she remembered the Empire. She remembered that all she had worked for was gone. If she looked at the empty couch next to her, she remembered Anakin. Her sweet, gentle husband, transformed last night into someone she could barely recognize. Padmé wasn't sure what had triggered the transformation. His witnessing a supposed assassination attempt on the Chancellor … _Emperor_ … by Mace Windu? Something she had done, or said? The baby? His nightmares?

The thoughts chased themselves around in her head, and she did not know which way to turn.

So she looked at the japor snippet.

Where should she go from here? How could she possibly cope with the information Obi-Wan had imparted?

_Anakin has turned to the dark side … I have seen a security hologram of him – killing younglings …_

Padmé's automatic response had been a denial: not Anakin! He couldn't! And yet, she knew he was capable of such atrocities. He had proven nothing less at the Tusken camp, massacring an entire tribe of Sand People after his mother was tortured and killed. But to kill his fellow Jedi – to kill _children_ – surely that was beyond him. Surely, no matter what the reward, he would not do such a thing.

And yet, Obi-Wan would not lie to her. Why should he? He had nothing to gain from falsehoods, and Padmé knew him to be an honourable man. He was her friend, and he had been for many years. And he had appeared so shaken. There was a horror in his blue eyes that she had never seen there, a kind of haunted desperation. A desperation born of witnessing terrible things. She knew it well.

But if the things he had told her were true, how could she reconcile that with her image of Anakin? Her husband, her Ani, who loved her more than he loved being alive, who had never before raised a hand against her and, she was sure, never would. When they were together he made sure to tell her at least once every day that he loved her. He called her his angel. His touch on her cheek was soft, his caresses were passionate, and they could discuss anything with each other.

Anything … except, apparently, what had happened the previous night.

Anakin had seemed distant, cold. Oh, he treated her kindly enough, but there was a deepness in his voice and a shudder in his touch to which she was unaccustomed.

_Have faith, my love. Everything will soon be set right._

"My love." He had never called her that. She was always "Angel" or "my angel." And he had sounded so sure of himself, more sure that she had heard from him in weeks. Why? What had brought about this sudden personality change?

Obi-Wan had claimed, quite clearly, that Anakin had turned to the dark side.

Could the dark side do this?

Padmé felt a stirring in her belly, where the baby grew secretly. _Ani owes me the truth_, she thought suddenly. _No, he owes_ us _the truth. No matter what it is, I will always love him. Always._

She held onto the words like a promise, a desperate confession of faith.

Then she rose from her couch.

"Threepio, contact Captain Typho and tell him to ready my skiff."

"Oh?" The golden droid paused in his dusting of a nearby statue. "Whatever for?"

"We're going to Mustafar," Padmé said firmly.

"My lady, are you sure that is the wisest course of action in these troubled –"

She cut Threepio off, staring into the distance. At the Senate building, where she had witnessed the destruction of the Republic. At the Jedi Temple, which still smoked and burned.

"Yes. Anakin needs to know that there is still one person who believes in him." A deep breath, to further seal the promise. "Who always will."


End file.
